How do you think the YU-NO anime will turn out?

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YU-NO Anime Expectation

How do you think the YU-NO anime will turn out? In my opinion, hopefully, it will turn out good, but realistically I think it's going to be a trainwreck. Mostly because I want to keep my expectations low as possible. Even if it turns out good I know there's going to be some problems with the anime. But at least it's 2 Cour so there's some hope.Last modified on 2018-10-22 at 21:31

Honestly, forgettable is the best I dare to hope for. The only adaptations I've seen that could live up to the original material were the KyoAni Key adaptations. Everything else has been some mixture of incomplete or poorly produced in some way or another. I'd be less worried if 5pb. were getting a decent studio, but they've contracted feel., who... doesn't have the best track record with visual novel adaptations, to put it lightly. The director seems to be fairly new, and his only previous credit is on a light novel adaptation that received middling reviews. If the studio was, say, White Fox, ufotable, or someone else with a decent track record, maybe I'd be a little less apprehensive.

That's besides the point, though. YU-NO isn't really a visual novel; it's an adventure game. I've seen some good visual novel to anime adaptations; I've never seen a good video game to anime adaptation. (The original Idolmaster anime was pretty good, but that doesn't really count.) YU-NO was always designed around an interactive medium; half the fun is in exploring the world and figuring out how to progress (and inevitably looking up a walkthrough when you fail). Plus, you have the orbs, which are just going to seem like a lazy plot device instead of a clever gameplay element.

Honestly, I'm hoping it'll be mediocre, but it could very easily be a massive disaster on the level of the Rewrite adaptation.

The final route, which is more linear (and during which it arguably becomes a visual novel proper), should in theory be easier to adapt than the "game" portion. However, it will still probably be heavily abridged (even though it has been often accused of being "rushed"), and I don't know if the director will be able to hit all the emotional beats while preserving enough exposition to keep the plot understandable; it may as well require some rewriting to appeal to the general anime audience as the original starts to operate on increasing amounts of hentai logic during it (nogards/Kun-kun, Sala; the incest is in all likelihood too infamous to be cut however).

It's also unfortunate, that it probably will be based on new art by 5pb, which looks horrible to me. If it was made using character designs from original version, it would at least look decent... But still I think, that YU-NO's story is too convoluted to make good anime adaptation.